A potential U.S. trade war has breathed some life into the fraught idea of shipping oil through Hudson Bay

The prospect of a trade war with the United States has forced businesses on this side of the border to consider how to reduce their reliance on what used to be our most reliable partner as both an export market and a source of all manner of goods.

This includes oil. Alberta sends approximately 85 per cent of the oil it produces to the United States for processing and consumer use, according to that province.

Even some Canadian-bound oil flows through the United States along Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline, which runs through southern Manitoba and a corner of North Dakota into Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and eventually southern Ontario. 

The sudden prospect of the U.S. turning off that tap — something Michigan's governor once attempted to do —or reducing Canadian exports through 10 per cent tariffs has immense implications.

A sudden, rash move by the mercurial administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, in terms of oil tariffs or the Enbridge pipeline, would be a serious source of financial concern, even for Canadians who are eager to see the country wean itself off oil production as a revenue source and hasten the transition to a clean-energy economy.

This has Canada suddenly considering its short and long-term export and transport options for an industry that will still be around for a few more decades. 

That includes breathing some life into an idea that sounded fanciful mere months ago: Transporting oil across the northern Manitoba muskeg and filling tankers at a port on Hudson Bay.

To be clear, this is an environmentally fraught idea with a price tag likely in the billions and logistics that can charitably be described as implausible.

But in this particular moment, nothing is off the table, including a once-fantastical sounding Alberta-based proposal to thread an oil pipeline parallel to the Nelson River, along the south side of Wapusk National Park and below a section of Hudson Bay itself to a floating, offshore terminal capable of servicing oil tankers with ice-reinforced hulls. 

Mike Moyes, Manitoba's environment and climate change minister, declined to rule out the idea of exporting oil through Hudson Bay, even as he stressed the provincial NDP government's energy goals right now include the construction of geothermal heating districts and wind farms.

"We're going to look at every single project on the merits of that project," Moyes said Friday in an interview, stressing he cannot really comment on what he described as a hypothetical Hudson Bay oil shipment proposal.

"There's a lot of consultation that would need to go into that, including with First Nations and other Indigenous communities that would be affected, in addition to a whole variety of municipalities."

PC leadership candidate supports idea

Moyes did acknowledge, however, there is renewed interest in finding new ways to get Canadian oil to market.

"We know that there's lots of different resources in Canada and I know that … with the threat of tariffs kind of hanging over our heads, there is a movement toward trying to be more self-sustaining, and I understand that," he said.

Earlier in the week, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew brushed off the idea of shipping oil to Hudson Bay, instead noting the province's continued support for strengthening the existing port in Churchill, a town roughly 1,000 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

That Hudson Bay port's unsuitability for oil exports, however, led the former Progressive Conservative government of Heather Stefanson to pledge $7 million toward a study of an alternate oil-and-gas transportation route.

That pledge was cancelled by the Kinew's NDP government, which stated no actual money was ever set aside for it.

Right now, one of the most vocal advocates of shipping oil through Hudson Bay is Wally Daudrich, who owns a hotel and ecotourism company in Churchill and is one of two candidates running to replace Stefanson as PC leader.

Daudrich regularly raises the idea when he speaks to prospective voters in the PC leadership race, arguing an offshore port would permit year-round shipping, and the pipeline along the Nelson River would traverse more stable geography.

"I don't think that this project has any unnecessary risks involved. Russia has been doing it literally for decades," Daudrich said Thursday in an interview.

"What you would end up doing is actually having a floating island offshore that's anchored to the ground and pipes that come up that are buried beneath the tidal zone, like under the ocean floor. They come up and the ships actually load up five miles offshore or 10 miles offshore."

The cost of such a project would be immense, though Daudrich claims it could be built at no cost to the taxpayers, given interest from export markets. 

Even if billions somehow became available, the idea would still face stiff opposition, as Moyes hinted. Environmental activists have warned it would take three days to even reach the site of a Hudson Bay oil spill, let alone clean up such a spill.

"The idea of putting bitumen into Hudson Bay is a terrible idea. There's just no way that Hudson Bay can handle a bitumen spill or a cleanup," said Eric Reder, a campaigner for the Wilderness Committee in Winnipeg, when the Stefanson government pledged money for a study in 2023.

The provincial and federal governments have also devoted all their Hudson Bay coastal infrastructure support to Arctic Gateway's Hudson Bay Railway and the Port of Churchill.

Federal support, however, could swing toward at least the idea of an oil pipeline if Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives form Canada's next government.

This means Manitoba may very well face another discussion about shipping oil through Hudson Bay, as fraught and fanciful as the idea may seem right now.